‘We are a mixed-race family, and they don’t have many in Mullingar, but that’s fine. We’re not afraid to be one of the first’

Vimal Ramchurn was sitting in a class on international business with his friends from Mauritius when he noticed a new girl at the back of the room. He spoke to her at the break, and they connected on social media. “We loved each other immediately, it was obvious we were going to end up together somehow,” says Raimonda Masiulyte-Ramchurn. Little did Vimal Ramchurn know, he had just met a Lithuanian pop star who would one day become his wife.

Singer Raimonda Masiulyte-Ramchurn came to Ireland in 2010 to visit her sister and take a break from the constant media scrutiny she was experiencing in Lithuania. She had a thriving pop career — she reached the finals of Lithuania’s Eurovision selection in 2008 — however, the pressure became too much. “We used to have these unrealistic expectations for singers and performers [in Lithuania], where you have to look a certain way, you have to be a certain weight. I would get questions like, ‘So, when are you planning to lose weight?’ And, ‘What do you eat in a day?’ People would talk more about my weight than my talent.”

She discovered the joy of anonymity in Ireland, “where I could walk around and just go to a pub and no one would know me…nobody would look at what I’m eating and drinking.” She says, now, more than 10 years on, things are not as bad for performers in Lithuania. “I still do performances there and appear in magazines… and I brought the Dublin Gospel Choir that I sing with to one of the biggest jazz festivals in Lithuania a few years back.”

Ramchurn decided to leave Mauritius in 2008 to pursue education opportunities, and after his visa was rejected for the UK he rerouted his plan to Ireland. His biggest challenge when he arrived was understanding the various accents, and ensuring people understood him. He considered himself to have a good grasp of English but when he asked an older man for directions, the response was: “Can you speak English please?”

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When they started going out Ramchurn heard about the singer’s fame from other Lithuanians. “I think he didn’t believe me,” Masiulyte-Ramchurn laughs. “But,” says Ramchurn, “I totally believed her when we went there... I really felt special then.” The couple decided to find a place together in Dublin a month after they had met at Griffith College. They found it quite easy to find an apartment to rent in the city in 2010, and at a bargain compared with today’s prices. Ramchurn went on to complete the course in international business while Masiulyte-Ramchurn decided to pursue more creative projects.

The couple loved the city and the friendliness of the people they encountered. Ramchurn found his passion working in kitchens and eventually became a head chef. “It’s a family thing,” Masiulyte-Ramchurn says to Ramchurn, “your mom is an incredible cook too, and I think you took that from her.”

Masiulyte-Ramchurn found the music scene here vibrant and welcoming. However, living in the inner city was not without its challenges. Ramchurn was assaulted when he was walking home from work one night, and returned to their flat covered in blood. Another time, the couple came home from a Christmas party to find Masiulyte-Ramchurn’s recording equipment had been stolen. They say, however, they have experienced little discrimination in Ireland, except for one time Masiulyte-Ramchurn can recall, when someone shouted “go back to Poland” at her on Parnell Street.

After 3½ years together, the couple got married. Most of their family did not make it to Ireland but they did not let that put a dampener on the celebration. “We got our musician friends to play at the ceremony — Eamonn Moran and Myles Drennan, the amazing jazz pianist and guitarist — and we all had a few drinks afterwards. It was like one big bohemian party.”

In 2019, the couple decided to put down roots and bought a home in Mullingar, Co Westmeath, where Masiulyte-Ramchurn immediately picked up on the town’s musical heritage. “We got a pretty good deal. We haven’t paid much more [than we would have] in Lithuania or Mauritius. Because it needed some work, we didn’t pay as much as people think we did.”

Since the town has emerged from Covid lockdowns, the couple have found it easier to settle in and have been welcomed by their new neighbours. “I like that vibe — it’s a bit like where I grew up — everybody knows each other,” Masiulyte-Ramchurn says. “We are in a mixed-race family, and they don’t have that many here in Mullingar, but that’s fine. We’re not afraid to be one of the first ones.”

The lifting of pandemic travel restrictions was a relief for the couple who like to visit their home countries together as often as they can. People warned Ramchurn that he might experience racism in eastern Europe but, he says, that was not the case; Masiulyte-Ramchurn’s family and friends welcomed him with open arms, and he even came to love the food after an initial wariness. When it comes to Mauritius, Masiulyte-Ramchurn is happy to have an excuse to visit the beautiful destination, where Ramchurn helped his mother open a traditional restaurant following the death of his father in 2019.

The couple are planning to combine their passions by one day opening a restaurant in Mullingar, where he can display his culinary talents and she can serenade diners with her voice. Masiulyte-Ramchurn also hopes to release new music later this year. For now, the couple are enjoying their new home and the peace of town living; “You could say we have been lucky in a lot of ways,” he says. “Yeah,” she agrees, “Ireland is our lucky charm.”